Typically, a battery electric counterbalanced forklift includes forks and a mast for raising and lowering the forks, both of which are disposed in front of a vehicle body, and also includes a counterweight disposed behind the vehicle body, a battery compartment provided within the vehicle body, an openable battery cover closing the compartment, and a seat disposed on the cover. Moreover, it is often the case that the counterweight has an electrical part compartment, which is open on the vehicle body side.
This type of forklift often has a problem in that when the battery cover is flipped up backward for maintaining the battery accommodated in the battery compartment, rainwater pooled on the cover flows to the counterweight and enters the electrical part compartment through a boundary portion between the vehicle body and the counterweight, thereby adversely affecting electrical parts.
With regard to this problem, Patent Document 1 discloses that the center of rotation for flipping up the battery cover is set within a gutter member (leakage removal groove) extending in a left/right direction. In this configuration, when rainwater flows toward the counterweight, the gutter member receives and guides the rainwater to an appropriate drain outlet, thereby preventing the rainwater from entering the electrical part compartment.